Sealing My House Against Pathogens

Edit: Guys, obviously I am not going to make this permanent, I’m just prototyping things that could be put in place easily in an emergency scenario! Much love.

I am figuring out how to positively pressurise my house to protect against future airborne pathogens. Borrowing from the idea of cleanrooms, I want to seal my house, pump in outside air that is then HEPA filtered, and then force a positive pressure differential so that any leaks are still protected from one-way airflow.

My (British) flat is naturally ventilated. Under usual circumstances, I would make a circular cut through a panel in my window, add a duct tube through a HEPA filter, and use a duct fan to pipe clean air in from the outside. But planning permissions don’t allow it, even though I own the flat. I also wanted to find a retrofittable way to do this without modifying my house, so that renters would also have a solution.

As you can see, my windows are big, and open awkwardly. The problem is to figure out a way to retroactively create a seal around this window, so that I can pipe in clean air through a filter only from one entry point.

This has been the hardest part so far. My first shitty attempt was to use tarp and tape it around the windows. This didn’t work well because tape doesn’t stick well to brick. Cutting tarp also isn’t very clean. Trying to hang something cloth-like, in a fixed position to the window takes a lot of upper arm strength, so its not that accessible to the public either.

So, my solution was to try and find something more rigid. Ideally, it would be easy enough to cut and modify, which excludes wood, but something still fairly insulating. I decided to try Recticel insulation foam, which is a rigid foam like substance that you can get from a department store. I found that it was pretty easy to make a cut with a box cutter and scissors.

I then was able to place it over my window like this.

The downside of this is that you need to order quite a lot in bulk, and those with limited storage space will have trouble with this. It also leave a bit of a mess when you drag the foam on the sides.

My next step is to figure out a way that I can seal it to the wall without ruining my brick surface. I’m thinking of using some sort of suction technique, or non destructive glue. After that, it would be a matter of using a hole saw to cut an opening through the foam for a duct fan and filter.

I also want to cut a window as well!!! Don’t worry guys!!